All of our cereal crops are planted and harvested every year. They won't have time to accumulate the damage that we need to shield humans from. Also, plants seem to handle radiation very well - see the growth around Chernobyl[1].

(Note: The danger of eating Chernobyl's foliage is not that it has been irradiated, but that it has ingested radioactive material. That shouldn't happen with cosmic rays.)

[1]https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2010/...

> The easiest way to do that is still glass domes

The prettiest way to do that are glass domes. The easiest is underground with glass cylinders piping down sunlight.

Yes, but Elon Musk mentioned them as living spaces.

Everyone's going to appreciate the opportunity to wander a green garden in a t-shirt. Do it at night and you're getting a lot less radiation, and I'll wager it'll be a hell of a sky too.

My impression was that once you're down on the surface of Mars the radiation that isn't blocked by the atmosphere is mostly cosmic rays which don't depend on day or night.

Plants are living?

So you're saying that beyond everything else Musk is also making contributions to the marketing of greenhouses? Because "living space" is always related to humans, as far as I can tell.

Yes, thank you, my reply was tongue in cheek.

Though some other comments I think mentioned that it probably wouldn't be too dangerous to allow the occasional stroll through the greenery. Doesn't sound too far fetched if you consider I can choose to hang out at the park without a hat in exchange for an extra dose of UV radiation for the day. Not saying UV is on the same level as cosmic radiation, it's just something to think about :)